IRAQ: Leaders of Iraq's Kurdish north have unveiled a controversial plan to consolidate their hold on the region's future petroleum resources, raising concerns about how the ethnically divided nation will share its oil revenue.
The Kurdish parliament will be asked to vote on the creation of a ministry of natural resources that would regulate potentially lucrative energy projects in newly discovered oil and natural gas fields within the three provinces of Iraqi Kurdistan.
The new ministry, if established, would be another step in the Kurds' slow drift away from the Baghdad government, as well as a potentially destabilising gesture in a country already on the verge of fragmenting on ethnic and religious lines.
"They have the right to make a decision in their territory, but it is dangerous," said Muhammad al-Uboudi, a divisional director general of the national oil ministry and a government adviser. "They are starting to search for oil without any consultation with the central government. What if Basra does the same, or any other province?"
Interim oil minister Ibrahim Bahrululum, advised of the proposal, warned against unilateral decisions on oil.
"At the end of the day it's important to have co-ordination and communication, especially with oil, because it's a very sensitive issue," Mr Bahrululum said.
Long oppressed and marginalised under successive Arab governments in Baghdad, Kurds pushed aggressively for a constitution that limits the central government's power and gives regional officials the authority to exploit newly discovered oil and gas fields.
In a controversial move in November, a Norwegian energy firm began drilling for oil in northern Kurdistan. The regional government had signed the deal without seeking approval from Baghdad.
The constitution is deliberately vague about how future oil profits would be distributed nationally, leaving a highly volatile issue unresolved.
A vote on the proposed Kurdistan ministry of natural resources could come as early as Monday in the Kurdish regional parliament, which is debating a plan to reunify and streamline the two halves of the Kurdistan regional government.
Kurds and their advocates characterised the proposed regional organ as a slight elevation in status of the state-owned oil company which currently manages such matters to a cabinet-level post, and dismissed concerns in the capital as overblown.
"Forming a new ministry is an arrangement that will help increase oil production," said Peter Galbraith, a former US diplomat who has advised the Kurds. Kurds and their supporters say creation of a new ministry is within the parameters of the constitution.
"There are people who haven't faced the reality of what has gone on in Iraq," said Mr Galbraith. "They still think that the old central state is going to be put back together again. It's not going to happen in Kurdistan . . . It's not going to happen in Baghdad."
Each half of the Kurdish region, which split apart in a 1990s civil war, has its own defence, interior, health and education ministries. The constitution ratified in an October 15th referendum gave Kurdistan the authority to wheel-and-deal with the international petroleum industry within Erbil, Sulaymaniyah and Dohuk, where Kurds make up more than 95 per cent of the population. But Kurds also lay claim to much of the region around Kirkuk, which is said to contain up to 40 per cent of Iraq's known oil reserves.
A referendum on whether the disputed region will become part of Kurdistan is scheduled to take place before the end of 2007.